The Japanese government says it will abolish the “evacuation-ready” zone in 5 municipalities that lie between 20 to 30-kilometer radius from Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant on September 30, all at once. It may be construed as a declaration by the national government that it is now “safe” to return after slightly over 6 months after one of the worst nuclear accidents in history (which many thing is “the” worst).

The Japanese government will abolish the “evacuation-ready” zone on September 30. The “evacuation-ready” zone was set between 20 to 30-kilometer radius from Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant after the accident [where the residents are required to be ready to evacuate on a moment’s notice and where no pregnant women and small children are supposed to be living].

松下忠洋経済産業副大臣が２６日午前、同区域に設定された福島県川内村の遠藤雄幸村長らに方針を伝えた。

Tadahiro Matsushita, Vice Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, informed the heads of the municipalities in the zone in the morning of September 26.

In the “evacuation-ready” zone, residents are required to be ready to take refuge indoors or evacuate outside the zone in case of a nuclear emergency. The zone includes part or all of 5 municipalities – Minami Soma City, Tamura City, Naraha-machi, Hirono-machi, Kawauchi-mura. Currently, about 30,000 residents out of pre-accident area population of 58,000 have evacuated outside the area.

今後、各自治体は復旧計画に基づいて学校や住宅などの除染を進めながら、域外に避難している住民らに帰宅を呼びかける。

Each municipality will carry out decontamination of schools and homes based on the “recovery plan” [that it has submitted to the national government], and ask the residents who have evacuated to come back.

On the national government’s notice that it will abolish the “evacuation-ready” zone by the end of this month, Fukushima Prefecture is finalizing the plan to build temporary houses in the 5 municipalities whose designation as “evacuation-ready” zone will be lifted. The prefectural government has started the selection process for the locations.

津波や地震で自宅が壊れた人たちに、より近い場所で暮らしてもらうための措置。

The houses are for people who lost their homes in the earthquake and tsunami, so that they can live closer to their old homes [i.e. come back from their temporary shelters outside the area].

The 5 municipalities are Minami Soma City, Tamura City, Hirono-machi, Naraha-machi, Kawauchi-mura. The prefectural government will ask the municipalities how many houses they want built. Minami Soma City has already asked the prefectural government for 400 houses.

Japanese have always been good at construction projects. I mean, good at “dango” profit sharing of all scales and sizes between the contractors and subcontractors, and between them and the government officials.

And “decontamination”? Good luck to them if the data from Watari District in Fukushima City is any indication. Professor Tomoya Yamauchi of Kobe University compared the radiation levels before and after the district’s “decontamination” effort, and found that it hardly made a dent. In a place where the removal of contaminated dirt didn’t happen, the radiation level doubled in a month, possibly with new deposits of radioactive cesium migrating from the surrounding area. Scrubbing the roofs and walkways with power washer lowered the radiation by 30% at most. (Professor Yamauchi’s report is here, in Japanese.)

But the “decontamination” projects, which are usually undertaken by the neighborhood associations with minimal support from the municipal government’s cleaning contractors, seem to have an effect of making the residents feel the radiation may have gotten lower because of their own effort, and that it will be OK to continue to be living there.

A cheap, almost ideal solution for the politicians in the national government and the prefecture – decontamination by the residents, no need to pay for evacuation costs, a building boom for temporary houses creating jobs for the locals.

… these are not “dosimeters” but “glass badges” that passively collect radiation information. It won’t help these children or their parents to avoid high-radiation areas and spots, it won’t tell them how much radiation they will have been exposed unless they are sent in to a company to interpret the data.

Radiation exposure is increased by a factor of a trillion. Inhaling even the tiniest particle, that’s the danger.

Yo: So making comparisons with X-rays and CT scans has no meaning. Because you can breathe in radioactive material.

Hirose: That’s right. When it enters your body, there’s no telling where it will go. The biggest danger is women, especially pregnant women, and little children. Now they’re talking about iodine and cesium, but that’s only part of it, they’re not using the proper detection instruments. What they call monitoring means only measuring the amount of radiation in the air. Their instruments don’t eat. What they measure has no connection with the amount of radioactive material.

Dr. Helen Caldicott (Co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility):

You’ve bought the propaganda from the nuclear industry. They say it’s low-level radiation. That’s absolute rubbish. If you inhale a millionth of a gram of plutonium, the surrounding cells receive a very, very high dose. Most die within that area, because it’s an alpha emitter. The cells on the periphery remain viable. They mutate, and the regulatory genes are damaged. Years later, that person develops cancer. Now, that’s true for radioactive iodine, that goes to the thyroid; cesium-137, that goes to the brain and muscles; strontium-90 goes to bone, causing bone cancer and leukemia. It’s imperative … that you understand internal emitters and radiation, and it’s not low level to the cells that are exposed. Radiobiology is imperative to understand these days.”